Instagram will host your 90-minute video. It still won't pay you.

On October 26, 2026, Instagram announced it is testing "Features," horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, with a small group of U.S. creators, and its app is now on Apple TV. Asked about paying creators for all that long-form video, an Instagram spokesperson told Variety that "it's too early to share a long-term monetization model."

If you build apps, games, books or templates, read that as a reminder: reach is rented. Your checkout is yours.

What changed this week

• Long-form "Features" in testing. More watch time for Instagram, not more money for you.
• Series for episodic Reels. Better retention inside the app.
• Instagram on Apple TV. Your content on a bigger screen, still inside Meta's walls.
• Creator pay. Instagram says it funds some long-form creators directly and is exploring performance-based incentives, but has no YouTube-style revenue share.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said creators on Instagram are mostly paid by brands, not the platform (TechCrunch). YouTube, by contrast, shares 55% of ad revenue with Partner Program creators. Different deal, same lesson: the platform decides the terms.

Why this matters more for makers than for influencers

Influencers sell attention. You sell a thing: an app, a game, an ebook, a template. For you, a view is only worth something if it ends at a checkout.

Platforms are built to keep people in the app. Links get buried in bios or shown less. You can go viral and sell nothing. Coding got cheap. Being found did not.

The hear-it-twice discovery plan (4 weeks)

People rarely buy the first time they hear about you. They often buy the second or third time. So plan to be seen more than once.

• Week 1: One launch you show up for. Pick one launch moment and be present all day: replies, demos, thanks.
• Week 2: A few directories people (and AI) actually read. List on the Digital Underground marketplace and two or three others. Use the same name and one-liner everywhere so search engines and AI assistants connect the dots.
• Week 3: One community and one comparison page. Join one community where your buyers already hang out, and add a "your product vs. the alternative" page to your site.
• Week 4: Ask the robots. Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask. See who gets cited. That's where to get listed next.

Own the three things platforms won't give you

1. Your checkout. Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Stripe or your own site. Digital Underground links straight out to your checkout and takes no cut of sales.
2. Your email list. The one channel no algorithm can turn off. We give away our sci-fi novel Humanity X: Off the Ground to grow our own list.
3. Your maker page. One URL for everything you've built. Every DU listing gets a public maker page you can link from any bio.

Get your "second time" every week: enter this week's Maker League. Community vote, a weekly winner and repeat exposure.

Make it a micro-product

• Solve one problem.
• Keep the price low enough to be an easy yes.
• Validate with a pre-sale before you build the big version.
• Go proof-first: a short demo video and real screenshots. The DU submit form supports both.

Build where you own the sale

Instagram will keep making the videos longer. It won't build your checkout for you. List your project free: paste a link and we fill in the basics. Then enter the Maker League, and if you want to see how we build our own list, grab our free sci-fi novel.

See it in practice: the Digital Underground store sells direct with one-time pricing, including the Humanity X sci-fi series (Book 1 is free).